Lawyers Should Learn to Talk Business

Ditching the legalese has its virtues and, for some GCs, it’s a requirement:

“Lawyers are so famously fluent in their own jargon that the rest of the world has furrowed its brow and given this language its own name — legalese. But Ricardo Anzaldua, Executive Vice President and General Counsel at MetLife, says the language of the corporate world is different, more practical, and firm lawyers are too often illiterate. ‘I require of my own lawyers an ability to communicate — in crisp and clear ways, in business friendly language — a digest of complex legal issues into actionable business prose,’ Anzaldua said. ‘I really don’t find enough of that in the outside counsel.’ Anzaldua’s need for clear, simple advice is as great as ever.”